Cold comfort for fiery fiends

South Indian curd rice is the cooling treat you need when all's not right

Answer this. What’s the point of all this self-styled, know-it-all banter and cooking if I can’t give a professional total hell from time to time?

So I take to any brief respites from my kitchen with great aplomb. Scanning the restaurant menu for dishes I would hesitate to cook at home. Ordering everything my heart desires. Protesting vehemently about discrepancies in the food/service/ambience.

My third dinner out this week and I was ready to exercise my self-bestowed rights. But just as I was about to tuck into the Beef and Foie Gras Gyoza’s at my friend’s chi chi new restaurant this week, my stomach gave up on me.

I was really looking forward to those dumplings. Instead, I was bundled into a black cab, while cursing poetic justice, and sent home.

Revenge is a dish best served cold they say. Now I had to soothe myself with a cooling treat from the quick Indian staple – the South Indian Curd Rice.

Back in India, this was standard lunch on blindingly hot summer days or when you didn’t feel quite right. Fresh, full of flavour and idiot proof – it’ll mend bruised pride and a raging inside in no time at all.

Feeds 1:

100gm Basmati rice

4-5 tbsp Natural low fat yogurt

2 sprigs curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 pinch asafoetida

1 dry whole red chilli

1 tsp oil

Salt to taste

Cook the rice according to the instructions on the pack. In a small pot, bring the oil to heat over a medium flame.

When it is hot, add the asafoetida. As it sizzles. add the mustard seeds and then the whole red chilli and curry leaves.

When the curry leaves stop crackling, mix in the rice, with some salt to taste. Leave aside for 10 minutes to cool for a bit and then stir in the yogurt.

7 Responses to “Cold comfort for fiery fiends”

aww..sorry about your poor tum, do get well soon.
I am all with you on leaving the complicated and intricate stuff to the pros( in my case, also sinful desserts , don’t want to become too good or frequent with that!)
Curd Rice, now that’s something I like making, exactly the way I like it,which is precisely the same as yours, with sume cukes added.

this was wednesday lunch in the school canteen in madras,1961
its been my comfort food all my life
some super toss-ins when you’re frying the curry leaves etc:
– finely diced ginger (would help that tummy thing)
– cashewnuts or peanuts (great crunch)
– unseeded green chillies (sorry – won’t help that tummy thing, but great foo the chilliheads like me)
– just about anything else 2 experiment…
it’s a very forgiving and inclusive dish.
good one.
cheers

I eat a variation of this dish when my stomach has let me down: brown rice and live natural yogurt. The bacteria in the yogurt helps restore digestive health. The rice is just plain comforting. But now I will add chilli – the heat, like ginger, dilates the blood vessels, which also aids digestion. Ah, asafoetida. One for my shopping list…